


Dear Rabbit

by toomuchagain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2014!verse, Alternate Universe - Croatoan/Endverse, Angst, Bottom Castiel, Canonical Character Death, Croatverse, Endverse, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, M/M, Multi, Other, Top Castiel, Top Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 14:08:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3771109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toomuchagain/pseuds/toomuchagain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten takes of the apocalypse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Rabbit

1) They're out in Sioux Falls, breaking into the sheriff's armory. Bobby is stalled in an office, staring hard at a framed picture.

Cas is here for the hardware, and he has enough sense to concentrate on that, rather than sticking his nose into Bobby's business.

One minute later he's cracked the lock and they've got that extra bit of ammunition.

Bobby's removed the photo from the frame, and tucks it away in his breast pocket.

They load up and roll out within ten minutes, and Bobby's expression is grim, but unfailing.

Cas wonders who it was, in the picture, and wishes he'd known them.

\--------------------

2) Things aren't all-apocalypse-all-the-time, but it's widespread enough that the post-grads they encounter are nervous and trying to take precautions. And sometimes those precautions include one-night-stands that know what the fuck they're doing, and will leave them with something that will keep them alive at least a little longer than most.

Everyone's hands are all over Cas that night, but it's only Risa who wakes up in time to get coffee with them. Risa who, never having shot a gun before, whips her pistol around fast as lightning to put a lucky shot through a croat's mouth. Dean can't protest against taking her with them when she demands to come along.

It's only Risa, who, three years later, is falling back on Cas's mattress, alone, while the rest of his congregation are held off in Emily's cabin.

Risa knows there's nothing between her and Cas. Dean and Cas have even told her the truth. And considering she was around early enough to see his mojo, she knows some things. Still she went with the orgy cult thing for longer than she might've.

But then Dean gets jealous, and he comes on to her.

They're successfully monogamous for the better part of a month, while the traffic through Cas's cabin—particularly of the male-identifying variety—picks up noticeably. But that month ends when Dean sleeps in Jane's cabin, and then skips out on a mission for the Colt that he doesn't bother telling Risa about. He doesn't even bother to prep her for temp command. Hell, he doesn't prep anyone for temp command. That includes Cas.

Cas's expression, as Risa relays what she knows, grows blanker until it's practically angelic. He can tell it pisses Risa off. She's expecting shared rage, or shared fear. Something. And all he's got is a private terror. This private terror that he's trying to calm by telling himself Dean took three others with him, so he's probably not on a suicide mission. It's an emotion so great and endless that the only way he can really keep himself in one piece is to shut down. To share it...he's not sure it wouldn't kill him.

Risa slaps him, and she walks out, and Cas replays her parting words in his head over and over and over, instead of thinking about how Dean left and there's no real evidence that he'll come back.

\--------------------

3) Detroit is surprisingly intact. Sure, there's blood and apocalyptic graffiti on every available surface, but one might have imagined a little more empty blast-crater, and a little less "nah, let the people try to survive," when it comes to the place the Devil took his vessel.

Cas is out here alone, half a day of driving away from Chitaqua. He's been wandering the entirely abandoned city for the better part of two hours. Not a rat, not a dog, not even a croat or demon. Nothing's here, and the city is mostly the same as it was. Every apartment he's broken into is practically untouched. Maybe a few blood smears here and there, but not much ruined.

He knows he should start loading up his car with every non-perishable he can. He knows he should be loading up with toilet paper, for fuck's sake. Instead he empties every pharmacy he can find, goes looking for any and every gun shop and range and takes everything they have. Until even the passenger floorboard of his truck is filled with boxes of ammunition, gunpowder, and bottles overfilled with pills.

There's plenty he could've collected instead, but that's not what Dean wants.

Cas is bringing Dean what he wants—and taking a little something for himself while he's at it.

He never tells Dean he went to Detroit.

\--------------------

4) Yeager is kinda a douchebag. First mission he ever went on with them, he ran to save himself when the rest of his team—Cas, Joe, and Vincent—got surrounded by croats. Unfortunately for him, Dean wasn't particularly interested in hearing that his goddamn angel had been surrounded and killed. And Cas wasn't particularly interested in him, Joe, or Vincent dying. When Dean reached them, Joe and Vincent were exhausted but alive, and Cas had put down the 50-something croats the other two hadn't.

Cas immediately stalked up to Yeager, dripping with the blood of the damned, grabbed his wrist and studied the gash across the back of Yeager's hand.

When Yeager started to try to pull back, fighting, Dean stepped in directly behind him. Yeager looked between the two of them in horror as Cas let a slowing drop of blood edge toward the cut.

Finally Cas brought a clean tissue around to wipe away any danger, and threw Yeager's hand away.

"You ever leave anyone behind like that again, I will personally peel your flesh from your bones while you scream," he swore.

Now, Yeager is one of Dean's favorites. He's replaced Cas on pretty much every mission.

Dean's replaced Cas with an impressive number of other people, in every possible context.

As he's sure to remind Cas every time he makes a late night visit and fucks Cas with half the lube he should, and none of the protection Cas knows he uses on anyone else.

As he's sure to remind Cas every time Cas thinks to maybe sit beside Dean in the mess, or that maybe he's allowed to do anything beyond give him a pat on the back.

As he's sure to remind Cas every time Cas does literally anything besides engaging in orgies and intoxicants.

Cas stops trying to touch Dean months before Dean fucks him face-down, hips-up, into the mattress one last time, and they go to die a death Cas is sure he's finally fucking earned.

\--------------------

5) Past!Dean is nice.

No, he's beautiful. His soul shines bright enough still that even a used-up, soiled husk of an angel can see it.

It's everything. And nothing.

Cas can never have it. He's pretty sure even past!Cas can't have it—Dean hadn't been up for fucking him ‘til he had no hope left for humanity and everyone was pretty much fucked. Then, high as shit, he'd finally declared, "Fuck it! A hole's a hole."

If he could take back the tsunami of butterflies in his stomach at that declaration, and the hope and disbelief and overwhelming joy...

...Cas would take it all back, because it really didn't matter that Dean had meant something deeper. He never _actually went_ deeper, and he did his best to rip Cas apart like he was field-stripping and modifying a defective weapon—grinding and correcting, and re-adjusting until everything was as he wanted.

Past!Dean still looks at Cas like he's worth something. Only, he doesn't at all. He handles Cas with kid gloves and generally acts like he's a child. Which Cas isn't, at all. And hell, Cas's expertise is making people uncomfortable and miserable, so why not put it to use against someone who's doing the goddamn same to him? Albeit, unknowingly, but past!Dean doesn't even realize Dean!Dean is going to kill them all just for one shot at Lucifer. Past!Dean doesn't even know that he can't save any of them.

Anyway, Past!Dean goes off to argue with himself (how fucking goddamn typical) rather than share last minutes or try to save anyone from themselves (so, _so_ fucking _typical_ ).

It doesn't matter. His life is the only thing he's yet to give to Dean (complete finality, no take-backs from God), and at this point, it's a goddamn moot point. Dean's busy sacrificing everyone's lives. And Cas can't see any reason not to allow himself to be included.

\--------------------

6) Cas knows the angels are closing up shop before they go. Balthazar pays him one last, frantic visit on the sly, trying to convince him to come back with him. It breaks Cas's heart.

Balthazar pleads with him, actually in tears, for hours. Dean's in an angelically-assisted sleep half a world away, which Balthazar hopes is enough to stop his influence on Cas—out of sight, out of mind, and all that.

He tells Cas that the punishment probably won't even last more than a few centuries. Promises that he'll fight for him, and even the torture will be worth it when he's released and granted the eternal paradise their father always intended for them. He tells Cas he's loved, cherished in Heaven, even by Michael.

But Balthazar doesn't understand that it isn't punishment Cas is scared of—Cas is no coward. He's tasted Heaven's re-education before, he can do it again. He's afraid of losing Dean. Because there is no paradise without Dean Winchester. And Dean will never consent to Michael's demands, and without that, Heaven will surely never let Dean's soul in.

Balthazar finally gives up in defeat. He leaves Cas with an embrace so tight and desperate that Cas almost thinks for a wild moment that he's decided to fuck what Cas wants, and forcibly drag him back with him. But instead he draws away, cups Cas's face in a grip so gentle, so tender, it's almost shocking in contrast with the way he'd held him locked in his arms, and kisses Cas's forehead. Draws back, face streaked with tears, kisses his mouth, and then is suddenly gone.

For a moment, Cas sways into the empty space where he'd been, breathing shakily, bereft. He takes another half hour, fighting the despair threatening to engulf him, before he gathers himself and flies back to Raleigh.

They're parked outside a Fat Mack's when Heaven closes its gates.

He's glad he opted to stay in the car while Dean ordered.

When Dean comes back, he's still sobbing into his hands.

\--------------------

7) Bobby doesn't die pretty, and they hear most of it over the phone as they rush to Sioux Falls. The phone's still on when they arrive—Cas can't bear to hang up until they're in the house, staring at his mutilated body.

After a long minute, he curses and it's less a word than pathetic, primal scream. He locates the phone Bobby dropped and crushes it under his heel, repeatedly, before throwing his own phone against the wall and grabbing his gun.

Cas is going to find every croat still hanging around, and he's going to murder every one of them.

It's strange—he'd've thought Dean would be the one acting this way, but Dean's kneeling by Bobby's side, cradling his head in his lap, shoulders shaking, when Cas storms out.

\--------------------

8) It's not Dean who bothers to teach him to shoot. Dean's the best shot Cas has ever seen, but for some reason he shies away from it.

Bobby teaches him. Dean takes off for a week. Cas and Bobby spend a lot of time shooting tin cans off cars, sharing beers, refilling shells, and casting bullets.

Cas proves to be more than a decent shot himself—in fact, Bobby pronounces his accuracy "scary."

That is, right up until he loses the rest of his mojo.

Bobby's long gone by then, and Dean's more than a little pissed to find out that without the ability to hold a gun 100% still, and marginally manipulate the atmosphere and trajectory of the bullet, Cas's aim leaves something to be desired.

For weeks, he's cut out of the patrol schedule.

Cas spends the time relearning how to shoot, trying to remember everything Bobby ever taught him. Dean never does try to help.

It's Catherine, who used to be a sniper in the Marines, who shows him how to accommodate for a gun's kick, and for the now uncontrollable atmospheric conditions.

She's beautiful in the throes of passion, and she likes it when she's got a loaded gun pressed into his forehead. Her pupils blow wide open when it just makes him groan, and his eyes roll back as he fucks her harder.

Catherine, who is strong and bright and terrible and electric, and so fucking _determinedly_ alive, dies a month later, and Cas misses the sharp, detached press of the barrel.

\--------------------

9) It's not breaking his foot that gets Cas addicted to pills. It's months before that, when he goes human. Dean gives him pills to feel better, to function, to survive. They smoke up together, and they drink together, and they sleep together.

When they first fuck, it's after Detroit, and they've both taken enough Vicodin and Adderall that beyond his own ecstasy at the event, Cas barely knows what's happening before Dean's pressing fingers into his ass.

It's slick, and hot, and Dean's fingers are rough and Cas gasps as they ease into him with contradictory gentleness. Dean's other hand is at the small of his back, like that one hand is a brick wall, crushing him against Dean, where he shivers, too hot, overstimulated, gasping for air that doesn't seem to exist. He stands on his knees over Dean's lap, looking down into his eyes.

The room is dim, and everything apart from Dean seems to be just outside of the light. The only thing he can hear is his own labored breathing and Dean's vivid encouragements, urging him to take more, praising him. Dean's eyes are dark and he can't look away, trapped and falling headfirst into something all-encompassing and terrifying.

Cas feels flayed alive; tears gather and fall like boulders down his skin.

When Dean positions himself and pushes in, Cas feels his heart freeze, and can't remember how to breathe. He remembers everything he ever read and pushes out, and it's enough. Then Dean's over him and around him and pounding him, crushing him in the vise of his arms, and he doesn't know if he's screaming or mute with the pleasure of it.

Dean's eyes never leave his; piercing, cutting, pulverizing him, until he's shattering with the force of release, and everything goes black.

\--------------------

10) When Cas wakes up, everything around him is dead.

Risa, Joe, the other Chitaquans. The croats. The demons.

He's not bleeding. But he's in a pool of blood that he's sure is his own, that's large enough he shouldn't be alive.

Sitting up makes him light-headed, and for a moment he thinks he's Falling all over again. But the vertigo passes and he's still upright. Standing is just as hard, and the vertigo doesn't really stop.

It's quiet. Eerily quiet. If everyone's dead, and he's not, then maybe...

...maybe...

Getting to the back of the hospital takes a lot of breaks, and a lot of dry heaving. But Cas has to know—which Winchester will he find lying dead back there?

Hazel eyes meet his when he finally steps into the garden.

Lucifer's smile is kind.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "I Know I'm a Wolf," by the Young Heretics.


End file.
